The legend of the Cadillac was born exactly 118 years ago, one of the automobiles symbolizing the US lifestyle and whose European range today has only one and latest production model, the Cadillac XT4, which however has nothing to do with the car sports car sculpted in the twentieth-century popular imagination and protagonist of dozens of scenes from famous films. The current US range is also quite modernized, but the Cadillac has not lost its legendary aura for this. Founded in Detroit on August 22, 1902, owes its name to Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, Lord of Cadillac, French explorer and soldier who in 1701 founded Villas d'Etroit, which later became Detroit, for a long time the American and world capital of the automobile.
However, the origin of the name already reserves surprises, because the French explorer did exist, but in reality his name was simply Antoine Lumet, later boasting a non-existent noble title. Cadillac is the name of the place where he was born, a small country village in southwestern France, not far from Bordeaux. A few years after its foundation, in 1908, the Cadillac car manufacturer became part of the General Motors group. It was immediately an innovative brand, not only for its unmistakable design but also because the first Model A, produced as early as 1903, was equipped with electric lighting and adopted a 10 HP single-cylinder engine.
Throughout history, various absolutely legendary models have been produced, such as the Cadillac De Ville Fleetwood 60 Special, known as the Pink Cadillac, which was purchased by rock 'n roll star Elvis Presley in 1955. In 1953, however, it went into production the first Eldorado, considered the maximum of one Personal Luxury Car, with a price that it exceeded $7.000, an exorbitant amount for the time, comparable to that of a Rolls-Royce. The 1959 Cadillac is also particularly iconic, due to its enormous "fins", while in 1957 the famous Eldorado Brougham "Silver Hardtop" was born from the Brougham, the extra-luxury segment of the Cadillac, still sought after by collectors today due to its difficult availability.
Despite the price tag of over $11.000, the house reportedly lost money for each specimen sold. Also for this reason, after the boom of the 50s with the various extremely elegant convertible and limousine models, a slow decline began in the following years. Even if the Cadillac brand has remained synonymous with quality and had great influence on international automobile production, as evidenced by the motto of the time: “An American standard for the world”.
